Tags
Best Practices, Brand Planning. Product Launch, Brand Promotion, Brand Support, Business Practices, Marketing, Marketing Plan, Product Marketing, SMR, Social Media, Strategic Planning, Strategy
The single most important thing to achieve success, is to have a strategy. Strategy should be clear and consistent, like the destination for a trip. You have a concept of the place in your mind and a point on a map. You may have consulted the web, guide books and friends, so you have a significant amount of information that allows you to “know” where you are going.
What route you take to get there is the strategic plan. It’s important, but unless you have a solid picture of where you are going, it may be an expensive, long and frustrating trip. With a firm and focused strategy, even if you go off course you can get back on track by checking the point on the map and orienting yourself accordingly.
Whether you leave on Monday or Thursday, take a car, boat, plane, or a combination thereof, travel straight through or stop for a night, are the tactics.
Why am I telling you this? And even more importantly, why should you care?
I believe we are going through one of the most destabilized periods in business history. Yes, the recession is a factor, but it comes down to the astonishingly rapid development in technology and connectivity.
For those established in business, it is a challenge to keep pace. For those starting out, you are totally immersed. For you, it is a way of life.
But for each end of the spectrum, the situation has its challenges.
The experienced lack familiarity with the vast spectrum of vehicles provided by technology, especially social media, and must rely on others to recommend the tools to promote Brand products and services.
The entry-level understand all of the options and how they work, technology is second nature. But as a by-product of the digital environment, many have a wide focus at a micro level.
So, we have a group looking for solutions and another group eminently capable of offering them.
How do we ensure the options are right for the product or service? How do we conquer the great divide?
We go back to the strategy and ensure it supports and fits.